Electronic and electric devices including integrated circuits (IC), sensors and other more complex devices, but also discrete electronic devices are often today implemented based on thin film and semiconductor or semiconductor-related technologies. The respective structures are typically formed on or integrated into a substrate material such as a semiconductor material. The fabrication is typically performed on a wafer-scale, followed by a dicing of the wafer into individual dies. The dies are then typically packaged to form chips.
In the framework of packaging, the dies are often mounted onto a carrier such as a leadframe. Often, some form of adhesive including solder pastes are used to mount the die onto the carrier.
However, these adhesives often contain some form of flux or other component which tends to creep onto a top surface of the die. This may, however, lead to undesired results and problems during the further manufacturing, the performance of the device or other device-related properties.
Since a size of the die typically directly relates into an efficiency of the fabrication process, a tendency exists to reduce a size of the respective dies. As a consequence, contact pads used, for instance, to enable the respective electronic or electric device to communicate with external elements, tend to be integrated more closely to a lateral edge of the respective die. Therefore, a danger of an unwanted contamination of the contact pads tends to increase.